How do I sell my house without an agent in Portland?

If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Portland without using a real estate agent, we can help.

While we often use brokers, sometimes it’s best to avoid paying someone to be in the middle. After all, paying 5-6% of the sale as commission is a lot of money. In some situations, Oregon real estate agents or brokers can be very useful and earn their commission. But not always.

There’s a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in your Oregon sale.

First, there’s a tricky custom that you’ve got to know about. In most Portland sales roughly half the commission goes to pay the buyer’s broker.

Doesn’t make much sense, right?

Why should you pay for the agent on the other side of the table? Truthfully, it defies logic – but it’s tradition. You can use this knowledge to your advantage in a few ways.

First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at comparable sales. Usually properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions. Consider that when trying to establish a price for your property.

Don’t underprice your property.– Be aware that a savvy buyer will expect to take a discount. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you should expect to save that money. But don’t give it back as a discount to a buyer.

Sometimes buyers who aren’t represented by an agent won’t remember to negotiate the buyer’s side commission out of the price they offer. So don’t remind them! Just don’t be surprised if it comes up during the negotiation.

You may consider offering 2.5% to buyer’s agents who bring clients to show your property. Yes, it’s a lot of money, but this will impact the number of showings you get. If your property looks fantastic this may not be a problem.

If your price includes a buyer’s commission, you can always offer a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent. On the other hand, if you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission, you will lose more than you expected.

Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS –that’s the Multiple Listing Service. It’s the main database that brokers in Portland use to access information for their clients. MLS data includes physical descriptions of houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold prices.

Once upon a time, you had to pay a full commission to get your property on the MLS. Now you can find sites on the Internet that will list your property on the local MLS for a fee. Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad, the MLS is a cheap way to market your property to the widest audience. And newspaper ads don’t attract the audience they once did.

All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Portland to the MLS, information on your property will end up on these sites within a few days.

These sites also sell ads. They have packages that let you pay to enhance your listing, feature it at the top of the search, and other bells and whistles that can attract a wider audience to your property.

Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Portland Oregon can be a great way to sell property. Sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same goes for newspaper ads, Craigslist postings, or fancy signs. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.

To effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well.

Fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls, and there are many free websites where you can post information. But often just putting up flyers and an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.

In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they spend a lot of money to advertise your property. By advertising lots of properties, they expect to get more phone calls. Obviously, they’ll make good profits by selling lots of houses. And they learn what techniques work best.

Certain properties will require thousands of dollars in repairs and advertising expenses before the right buyer is attracted to it. Check out your market before making a final decision.

If you want to avoid paying commissions, you can sell your house to investors like us for CASH

We pay fair prices for properties – and we will close on your schedule. You won’t have to make repairs, improve the curb appeal, clean or worry about clutter. Often times our clients don’t have the money or desire to do these things. They just want to be rid of the problem.

When we purchase Portland houses we sometimes sell them to other investors, or fix them up for sale or rent. It mostly depends on our needs at the time. Our primary goal, though, it to improve our communities and enhance the lives of the people who live there.

We love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in northwest Oregon or southwest Washington. We’re investors who care a lot about the Portland area and our client’s needs. If we can’t help you we’ll give you some ideas for how you might solve your problems. Just give us a call now at (971) 246-7954 or fill out the short form over here.

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"Quite often investors are willing to pay cash for a home and with the recent tightening of financial restrictions, coupled with the growing number of complaints about low appraisals, having a cash buyer has become even more appealing."

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We are a real estate solutions and investment firm that specializes in helping homeowners get rid of burdensome houses fast. We are not realtors, we are investors and problem solvers who can buy your house fast with a fair all cash offer.